1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an improved clothes dryer and more particularly, to an improved gas heater assembly for use in clothes dryers.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Many clothes dryers utilize gas or fluid fueled heaters for heating the air flowing through the clothes dryer. Such a gas clothes dryer is shown for instance in U.S. Pat. No. 3,558,110 assigned to the same assignee as the present invention. These prior art gas clothes dryers have the air provided to the drum heated by a gas flame that issues from a burner. The burner receives a regulated supply of gas from a control valve assembly and primary air for mixing with the gas is drawn into the burner through an inlet opening which is controlled by a shutter. The primary air and gas mixture in the burner is ignited and the gas flame is then spread out by a spreader formed at the outlet end of the burner. This spreader is located just within the combustion chamber so that secondary air is drawn in through the end of the chamber and is also heated to a high temperature. The outlet end of the combustion chamber communicates with a duct which provides a number of air openings in order to reduce the temperature of the heated air to an appropriate extent before it is introduced into the drum.
One of the difficulties with the above described prior art gas burners is that considerable space is taken up within the clothes dryer to first get the correct gas and air mixture burned and then reduce the temperature adequately so that upon entry into the drum it does not detrimentally affect the clothes being dried.
It is desirable to minimize the space necessary to obtain optimum performance of a gas heater assembly and to have such gas heater assembly easy to manufacture and assemble. Moreover, it is desirable to reduce the number of component elements thus making the gas heater assembly less expensive yet efficient in its operation.
By this invention the above-described desirable characteristics of a gas heater assembly for a clothes dryer may be achieved.